[HN Gopher] Coal is losing the price war to wind and solar faste...
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Coal is losing the price war to wind and solar faster than
anticipated
Author : Panino
Score : 36 points
Date : 2021-05-10 18:00 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (electrek.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (electrek.co)
| gnicholas wrote:
| I am curious to know how this analysis factors in the need for
| storage of wind/solar for periods when it is not windy/sunny.
| When I looked through the report, I only saw this.
|
| > _We are already seeing combined renewables-plus-storage plants
| win competitive solicitations and capture some of this value in
| high solar-and wind-potential regions (empirically, this appears
| to add roughly $4-8 /MWh to renewable energy costs). We expect
| the trend to continue as battery prices slide down the learning
| curve._
|
| My interpretation is that wind/solar plus storage is more
| expensive, which undercuts competitiveness outside of the most
| windy/sunny locations. I am as excited as anyone about new
| developments in storage technology, but it seems like it's still
| a significant challenge.
|
| Was it discussed elsewhere, or is anyone else aware of other
| information regarding the combined cost? It seems like this one
| statement somewhat undermines the conclusion, unless I'm missing
| something.
| labster wrote:
| Even where coal is competitive, it's still more expensive than
| nat gas in pretty much every environment. And of course when
| talking about coal you should probably price in health and
| environmental externalities of the combustion alone.
|
| A long term problem is that in remote areas of the high
| latitudes -- Alaska, Nunavut, Siberia -- fossil fuels are the
| only reasonable energy where geothermal isn't available. It's a
| good thing fusion is only 20 years away.
| belval wrote:
| Yeah but we can afford to have them burn fossil fuels until
| the end of time, their population is relatively tiny.
| Hypx_ wrote:
| (Chemical) hydrogen will be available much sooner than
| fusion. We should see a lot of hydrogen related
| infrastructure being deployed soon.
| etrabroline wrote:
| This is sarcasm right? Hydrogen isn't a source of energy
| its a storage mechanism that has to be produced using
| fossil fuels or electricity, and you don't get more energy
| out of it than it takes to produce it.
| Hypx_ wrote:
| Yes, but you can create it during one part of the year
| and store it for other parts of the year. It is going to
| be a viable replacement for fossil fuels for northern
| climates long before nuclear fusion happens.
| maybelsyrup wrote:
| > It's a good thing fusion is only 20 years away.
|
| Is it? This sounds exciting. Can you say more?
| belval wrote:
| It's just an old "joke", fusion has been 20 years away for
| the last 40 years or something like that.
| etrabroline wrote:
| The Sparc/Arc project in the US
|
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mit+sparc+denn
| i...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC_(tokamak)
|
| and the STEP project in the UK
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Tokamak_for_Energy_
| P...
|
| Both are very promising, and unlike all previous
| experiments, if their core design goals are met they would
| quickly lead to commercialization, quite plausibly within
| 20 years.
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(page generated 2021-05-10 23:02 UTC)